“Survival” and “death” in Céline’s novels

Abstract Louis-Ferdinand Céline, a French writer of the twentieth century, was an important author during the two world wars in France. His works, set against the backdrop of these wars, depict the various aspects of human nature during wartime. “Survival” and “Death” are important themes discussed in Céline’s novels. Under the background of wars, “survival” becomes the instinct of characters in Céline’s works, but the threat of death is always present. Through the perspective of a doctor, Céline materializes “survival” and “death,” using metaphors such as “devouring,” “decomposition,” and “corrosion” to illustrate the viewpoint of “death on the installment plan,” vividly depicting the “imagination” and “fear” between “survival” and “death,” presenting the disasters and sufferings caused by wars, and expressing strong antiwar sentiments within a pessimistic view of life and death. By using semiotic isotope as a tool, we study the thematic generation process of “survival and death,” analyzing the “surface-level image paths” of the text through the “discourse images,” and then delving into the deeper layers of the text to discover the inherent and shared nuclear seme features of these images and their repetition of information, namely semiotic isotope.